Comoros Post, La Poste Comores, Societé Nationale des Postes et Services Financiers SNPSF

• Visit date: October 15 2024
• The visited post office: SNPSF Moroni Post Office
• Cost of sending mail: France 350KMF (0,71 Eur) , Europe 450KMF (0,92 Eur) America, Asia, Oceania 500KMF (1,02 Eur)
• Postcard availability: Limited amount in Moroni Post Office and in National Museum in Moroni
• Postcard delivery time: The fastest postcard arrived in the Netherlands in 17 days

Comoros is an independent island nation located in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Africa. It consists of three main volcanic islands: Grand Comore, Mohéli, and Anjouan. Mayotte, a fourth island in the Comoros archipelago, is a French territory. The three islands of Comoros form an independent federation.

A brief history of Comoros Post

The Comoros’ postal history mirrors the islands’ complex journey toward independence. Starting with the use of generic French colonial stamps from the mid-19th century, the Comoros shared Madagascar’s postal system from 1911 to 1946, using its stamps. Since 1946, the status of the archipelago changed from a colony to an overseas territory of France. In 1950, the archipelago received its own dedicated stamps, inscribed with “Archipel des Comores,” marking a step towards a separate postal identity. Following independence in 1975 (except for Mayotte, which chose to remain French), the Comoros experienced a remarkable philatelic boom under President Ali Soilih’s leadership from 1976 to 1977. The country issued an extraordinary number of stamps during this period, surpassing the entire output from 1946 to 1975, showcasing a desire to assert a unique postal legacy in the nascent independent nation.

Currently, the Société Nationale des Postes et Services Financiers (SNPT) is responsible for delivering mail in Comoros. In 2004, the SNPT’s operations were split, leading to the creation of two separate state-owned companies: Comores Telecoms and SNPF, the Comoros Postal Bank.

Our visit to Comoros

Our goal was to visit the Grand Comore post office in Moroni. We arrived in the city in the late afternoon, just as the post office, the market, and some shops were closing. We had to wait until the next day to visit.

In the evening, while walking around the city, we tried to find postcards. There aren’t many tourists in the country, and there didn’t seem to be much demand for postcards. Although we found two art shops, they didn’t have any postcards or magnets. Even the bookshops didn’t have birthday cards. We were prepared and had brought some Comoros postcards with us, which were printed elsewhere. However, I wanted to send postcards made from the actual location, so I looked longingly at the packaging materials behind the grocery stores, hoping to find something suitable to cut into cards. Unfortunately, none of them had anything unique to the Comoros.

Finally, on Wednesday morning, we were able to visit the post office. The philatelic counter sold many different stamps, and when we asked about postcards, the initial response was “no.” However, after a short while, they found three different types of postcards, 300 KMF (included a stamp of 300!!! about 0,6 Eur), all of them depicting people in traditional clothing. The friendly and cheerful postal worker couldn’t provide any further guidance about where else we could find postcards. We ended up finding more postcards later at the Comoros National Museum in Moroni, where we also discovered three black-white different types of postcards, 500 KMF (about 1 Eur) each, one of them only in a single copy.

So, how much does it actually cost to send a postcard from Comoros? We tried to find information about sending postcards even before arriving in the country. While the SNPSF website does have a price list for sending packages, we couldn’t find any information about postcards or regular letters. We only found a photo of an envelope online with stamps for 1000 Comorian Francs on it, posted in October 2023 to Germany. We also sent emails to various contacts from the Comoros Post that we found online, but we didn’t receive any replies. At the post office, we learned that the price for sending a letter or postcard is cheaper than we thought. According to their price list, the cost is 300-500 Francs. We had already managed to stock up on Comoros stamps before our trip, buying them from collectors on the secondary market in Europe. However, we also found a beautiful selection of stamps available locally.

We left some Estonian sweets at the post office and eagerly await the arrival of our postcards to their recipients.

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